


spine-chilling attractions

by JustMcShane



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Circuses and Carnivals, Developing Relationships, Gen, Idproquo 2020, Teamwork, Terrible Life Decisions, casefic, murder! at the circus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23279302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustMcShane/pseuds/JustMcShane
Summary: In which Miss Marta Cabrera and Detective Benoit Blanc spend a pleasant evening at the circus. Except it really never is quite that simple, is it?
Relationships: Benoit Blanc & Marta Cabrera
Comments: 16
Kudos: 57
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	spine-chilling attractions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [incognitajones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/gifts).



At the carnival gates, Blanc offers Marta his crooked elbow, and she can’t quite stifle the incredulous giggle that threatens to burst from her. He looks a bit hurt, but she really just can’t help it – he’s such a _gentleman,_ and the more time she spends with him the more she suspects it’s more habit than act. He acts like he’s sprung right from the pages of one of Harlan’s more Christie-inspired blood-drenched novels, and speaks like every word has been gently but firmly rolled in the dust of the south.

She hooks her elbow through his, of course, assuming the necessary amount of over-the-top demureness for the quaint situation that’s presented itself – “why, _thank you_ , Detective Blanc,” and he just takes it in his stride, elevating his levels of old-fashioned charming gentlemanishness to match her evenly as he escorts her lightly towards the ticket counter.

“My dear Miss Cabrera – if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times. Please do call me Benoit.”

She wrinkles her nose faintly at this, because calling him that still does feel far too familiar, even after – well, after everything. Harlan’s death, the investigation, the denouement and the knives and the aftermath. ‘Benoit’ is just too strangely formally familiar. ‘Benny’ – as she’s heard others call him – is entirely too causal. 

Marta hadn’t expected to hear from him at all after the Thrombey fiasco, if she’s honest with herself. Hadn’t really considered the possibility of them ever interacting again beyond an awkward chance meeting or two in some public place, somewhere, somewhen. But he had checked up on her once or twice in the months afterwards, during all the hassle of moving into the estate and keeping the previous owners at bay – and now there’s this: him calling her up out of nowhere, requesting the pleasure of her company for a night out at the circus. A welcome offer, certainly, and such a delightfully unexpected one, too, that just hearing it made her smile so widely she surprised herself at the time – but the circus in question that they’re attending tonight is located in the next state over. Definitely not anything local. And the circus, while impressive enough from the outside (at the very least) is really nothing to write home about – and it doesn’t look like the sort of thing that would be worth travelling several hours and braving a somewhat sketchy hotel to see.

He buys the tickets, paying for the both of them – something that she objects to on principle, although he manages to gently argue her into relenting – and they wander into the area outside the big top. It’s filled with soft warm carnival lights, crowds of people drifting around in small groups and pairs, and scattered sideshow acts. A pinstripe-wearing man crams fire down his throat frantically while his assistant juggles and throws candy to the crows. There is what Marta recognizes as an honest-to-god Mechanical Turk, playing a game against an elderly gentlemen – although she does know how it works thanks to Harlan and his lengthy tangents about very specific topics – and even a hook-a-duck stall.

“Okay, but _seriously,_ ” she says, turning her attention away from the carnival sights and sounds to stare questioningly at her companion. “What are we even doing here?”

“Having a pleasant evening, god willing,” he says.

“But in _Connecticut?”_

Blanc leads her merrily up to one of the many food stands, ignoring her questions, and very seriously and solemnly buys her cotton candy. Purple cotton candy. She is inordinately charmed by this, and tries very hard to keep it from showing on her face because she really does want answers. “You can’t distract me from your evasiveness with pure sugar, you know.”

“I most certainly can try,” he says, pressing the stick of luridly-colored candy firmly into her hands.

“Tried,” she says, already chewing on her sweet treat, “and failed. Tell me what’s going on. You wouldn’t drag me all the way out here for no reason.”

“That would be very convincing and extremely intimidating,” he says, a small smile curling up the side of his mouth, “if not for the fact that you currently have cotton candy smeared all over your face.”

She grimaces at herself and wipes at her face with her sleeve, and says, lowering her voice, “I did my research. I saw the article about Lydia Fox. This is connected somehow, isn’t it?”

His expression of amusement drops away somewhat, but his gaze is still very warm when he says, “I commend you for your initiative and ingenuity, Miss Cabrera.”

“Please don’t be condescending.”

“Perish the thought,” he says, looking genuinely offended at the allegation. “And – well, yes. I will admit to... there have _maybe_ been _perhaps_ an ulterior motive or two behind my inviting you here to this fine town on this lovely autumn evenin’ – ”

“Or not so fine,” Marta points out. “If that article’s anything to go by.”

“Well, yes,” he says. “That is, more or less, what I had been hoping to find out.”

She sighs. She can’t tell if she’s disappointed that their pleasant night out was apparently never going to be anything of the sort, or excited at the prospect of whatever’s about to happen – and then she wonders what that says about her, that she genuinely can’t decide on which is the truth.

“And me?” she asks, instead of voicing her complicated thoughts and feelings, of which there are many.

His smile can’t be anything but the most genuine of grins. “I rather think that I’d be lost without my Watson. Keep your eyes open and alert tonight, if you could? Despite all evidence to the contrary, I really have next to no idea about what’s going down here tonight, and an extra pair of eyes would be greatly appreciated.”

*

They settle in a middle row, a box of popcorn between them, and wait in the soft, dimly-lit noisiness for the show to start. Marta, despite all the trepidation she feels about whatever Blanc and she are here for, feels a blossom of excitement welling up inside her – that familiar feeling of anticipation from waiting for a TV show or movie to start. She’s never been to a circus before, actually – she wonders if Blanc had guessed or suspected that, and maybe that’s why it’s this particular case she’s been invited along to? Even as she arrives at that thought, the lights are dimming even further and the tide of the conversations around them rises sharply in enthusiasm then dwindles down to nothing as lights flare and the music swells.

The circus itself is spectacular. Acrobats flip and spin themselves through the air in death-defying stunts that make Marta’s breath catch in her throat in a glorious, pleasant sort of terror. There are clowns performing admirably timed slapstick routines, glamorous men and women riding horses in all manners of unorthodox poses and styles and spinning themselves up and down silks so skilfully and rapidly that it’s hard to tell where their bodies end and where the fabric begins. The ringmaster cavorts around the edge of it all; a grin stretching wide across his handsome face, the traditional top hat at a jaunty angle on his head as he gesticulates and conducts everything.

The lights are stunning, the music overwhelming, and the atmosphere infectiously merry. By the end of it all, Marta’s heart is beating fit to burst and she feels like she could vibrate right out of her skin with all of the second-hand adrenaline.

It’s hard to talk in the wave of people that flood out of the big top, because literally everybody seems to be determined to hold their own conversations at the top of their lungs, so they only really get to talk in the parking lot outside, as Blanc fiddles with the keys to his quaint little Mini Cooper.

“What did you think?” he says.

“That was incredible,” says Marta without even having to pause to think about it. “I haven’t seen anything that stunning in, well – I haven’t. Ever.”

“I quite agree,” he says. “I do love a good circus.” He takes a breath in, and he seems genuinely regretful when he says, “But.”

Marta sighs. She gets into the car on the passenger side. “But,” she agrees, “there is something very, very wrong with that place."

Blanc gets in too, but doesn’t start the car. They both just sit there in the semi-darkness, staring at the bright lights and striped tents only a short distance away from them.

“...You know, I really was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” he says. “Because if you hadn’t noticed anything wrong, I reckon I could’ve dismissed it as a fluke. A coincidence. A paranoid bit of nonsense.” He sighs, scrubs a hand across his face, and turns the ignition. His car rumbles to life. “I really do love a good circus. And I have the most horrible of feelings that this is nothing like a good circus.”

There is a lot to unpack here. It’s a fifteen-minute drive back to their hotel, so Marta gets unpacking. “You think they killed her? That girl from the article? – Lydia Fox?”

“Technically speaking,” says Blanc, “the circus only arrived a week ago. And since Mrs Fox’s gruesome murder was committed and discovered nearly four whole days before that...”

“They’re in the clear,” guesses Marta. “Although I’m sensing another ‘but’.”

“There are quite a lot of those where this is concerned, yes,” he says. “Take your pick of which of these is the most applicable: the ringmaster arrived in town around that time. There have been multiple other unexplained, mysterious disappearances around – but not necessarily in this area. There was only one trailer around the side of the circus that had all of its lights off,” he adds. “Strange, that, considering it was the largest one there.”

“Anything else?” Marta asks.

“Lydia Fox,” he says. “The woman who died a week ago – they didn’t release anything to the press about this, but I’m told she had some severe health problems prior to her disappearance and murder. Liver cancer, if I recall – although it clearly wasn’t liver cancer that did her in.” He looks at her. His eyes are bright blue, intelligent and quizzical as they regard her. “Now, do you have any thoughts on any of that?”

“Not yet,” she says. “I’ll have to give it some thought.”

“Wise choice,” he says, and drives on.

*

There had only been one room free in the hotel that they’re staying at – something about tourist season and the circus, the details had eluded her somewhat – which should be a lot more awkward than it actually is. Well, it is awkward, really – her mom would be absolutely horrified if she knew Marta was spending several nights alone in the same room as a man she barely knows, so there’s a bit of residual wariness there. But they manage to coexist fairly smoothly – orbiting easily around each other as they prepare for bed. At least there’s two of those. Marta can’t even begin to imagine her mother’s reaction to them having to _share a bed._

After negotiating shower schedules and teeth brushing and one small crisis involving not enough pillows between the two of them, they end up in bed. The horrific awkwardness becomes even more pronounced after Blanc turns out the light, and they just lie there for a while, both intensely aware of the fact that the other is most certainly awake.

“We should go back to the circus,” she says, into the darkness – just to break the tension. “To investigate.”

“Hm. Bold,” he says, musingly. “And probably illegal.”

“I’m only really used to doing illegal things, when it comes to murder investigations,” she admits. “Is it what you’d do? If you were planning this investigation by yourself?”

“Almost certainly not, but I’m always up for new tricks,” he says. “Back to the circus it is, my dear Watson – but tomorrow. Tonight, we rest.”

“Good plan.”

“I thought so. Goodnight, Marta.” It sounds final, but not in a bad sort of way – more like a resolution to the awkwardness, a found place of equilibrium for the conversation to rest.

“Goodnight,” she says, accepting this, and rolls over – face to the wall, back to him. She curls up under her blankets, listens to him breathing, and eventually falls asleep at some point that she can’t quite pinpoint.

It’s the best she’s slept in weeks.

*

Their plan, which consists primarily of ‘sneaking into the circus and nosing around’ sounds like an absurd episode of an children’s adventure-oriented television show, or maybe a climactic plot point from one of Harlan’s more fanciful novels, but nonetheless – it’s what they’re doing.

Although ‘sneaking in’ does imply that they’re doing something a lot more exciting than just walking up to the front door and bluffing their way into the premises. But then again, sometimes the simplest methods really are the best.

They take the car right up to the gates, and when they’re flagged down by a tired-looking guard, Blanc flashes his detective’s badge quickly enough that the guard can’t really see the details – and he doesn’t ask, either, just nods along when Blanc explains that they’re here for a routine security check, nothing to be worried about. He doesn’t object or argue, of course he doesn’t – Blanc is a white man in a well-fitting suit. Obviously instantly trustworthy.

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” the security guard says, leaning sideways to stare at Marta with a look of dim suspicion flickering in your eyes. “What’s your deal?”

Marta doesn’t miss the faint intake of breath from Blanc, beside her, but she ignores it. She also ignores the light, unhappy rolling of her stomach with an ease that actually surprises her, and meets the guard’s eyes evenly as she says, “We’re here for security reasons, like he said.”

He eyes her for a second or two before nodding, and waving them through.

Blanc rolls up the windows, and they pull into the lot filled with trailers and half-unloaded trucks, behind the main circus. “Very smooth indeed,” is all he says.

Marta leans against the cool glass of the car window, and breathes. “Well,” she says, “if this circus is really going around killing people, then I’d say that’s a pretty big security problem.”

“Mm. Somebody should really do something about that.” He parks the car with a jolt. “Ready?”

“Yep.” She gets out and pulls her coat on, straightening it around her shoulders, and tries not to look like an anxious useless tagalong who has no idea what she’s doing – because that’s not true, she is the opposite of useless. She’s capable and confident and she has a kind heart, and she also doesn’t know if it’s weird or not that Blanc’s words have made such an impression on her that they’re still bouncing around her head months later.

He doesn’t take her arm this time, but he does glance at her sideways and says, “Should any lying be necessary – ”

“Don’t worry about me,” she says, although it really is sweet that he does. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I know you will,” he tells her, and touches a hand lightly to her shoulder. She leans into it, just as briefly, and then, like they’d planned it that way (although they hadn’t had time to) they set off towards the largest of the trailers, where a man and a woman in loose sweats are poring over a series of diagrams – walking together and keeping perfectly even pace with each other.

*

Keeping up the pretext of a routine health-and-safety check all the while, they go around and talk to the circus performers and staff. It’s early morning, so most of them are practicing lightly or relaxing in and around the trailers. They keep the questions standard and non-threatening – how do you feel about your health and safety on these premises, is there anything that you think we should be worried about, and so on – and receive equally standard and non-threatening answers in return. Apart from one or two complaints about the state of the horse trailers, and some vague circus gossip, they come up with next to nothing.

Next to nothing, that is, until they talk to the circus ringmaster.

He’s just as charismatic outside of the show as he had been while spinning and leaping his way around the edge of the ring – although dressed in far more casual clothes as he jots notes and plans for upcoming shows on a portable whiteboard just outside of his trailer.

He introduces himself as Markus Corey, and is agreeable enough – answering their questions easily and without a hint of deception, although there’s a glint of something deeply intelligent in his eyes that disturbs Marta somewhat. That feeling becomes even more pronounced when he makes some sort of vague excuse about talking to the lighting technician, and stops Marta when she starts in the direction of Blanc to follow up with that.

“Actually,” Corey says. “If I could ask you a few more questions?”

It’s extremely obvious he wants to get her on her own. Blanc knows this too, judging by the glance in her direction and the slight face he makes. She pulls a face of her own at him, letting him know that she’s not super happy about this either, but it’s the only way that they’re probably going to get answers out of this guy. He acknowledges this with a sombre nod, and narrows his eyes at her, before nodding towards the tent he’s heading towards – just make some noise if she needs him.

She turns back to Corey, and realizes with a jolt that he’s been watching this silent exchange with muted amusement. She doesn’t say anything about it, though, and neither does he. He just caps the lid of his whiteboard marker, pulls out his phone, and – while typing something into it – says, “Miss – Cabrera, was it?”

“Call me Marta,” Marta says, although she really would prefer he do anything but. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

Markus Corey glances left and right and behind him, almost comically exaggerated in the movements – as if he’s trying to make it abundantly clear that he’s checking for eavesdroppers. He leans into her. “Well,” he says, “for starters, we both know that the whole health and safety thing is bullshit.”

Marta’s heart jumps to her throat. She feels her veins go electric with anxiety and something else she can’t quite name.

“Hm,” she says non-committally.

Corey’s mouth curves upwards in a charming halfway smile. “Marta, I’m the director of this circus. You really think I wouldn’t know when we’re scheduled to have health and safety checks? And usually the people doing them would at least bother to call ahead of time. And there’s the little matter of your detective friend –”

“He’s not a detective,” says Marta, instinctively covering for him, and immediately regrets it when her stomach lurches unpleasantly and she has to lean over so she doesn’t hit Corey’s shoes as she regurgitates her breakfast onto the dry brown grass. “Hrgh. _Gah._ ”

“Jesus Christ,” says Corey, looking genuinely worried. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she gasps, heaving a bit. “Probably ate something weird for breakfast,” she adds, and throws up once more for good measure. She winces, and straightens up. Great. Now her mouth tastes like shit. She quietly promises herself that she’s not going to do any more lying today, no matter what it takes, and says, “...I think that’s the worst of it. Sorry – what were you saying?”

He eyes her for a moment, and then says, “Yes. Well. We both know that your ‘head of Connecticut Health and Safety’ friend is actually Detective Benoit Blanc, renowned private investigator.”

He turns his phone screen to her and, yes, there’s that New Yorker article again. Damn. She wonders if this is the first time Blanc’s fame has tripped up his investigations like this, or if it’s just the first time that someone has managed to convince him to do hands-on, slightly-illegal investigating.

“Which really begs the question,” continues Corey, withdrawing his phone. “What are you two doing here?”

“Investigating,” she says. “Clearly.”

“Investigating what? We haven’t done anything wrong.” Corey’s grin is so blindingly genuine that she can actually believe him. “Our statements and books are all in order. We’re perfectly legitimate. None of the staff or performers are convicted criminals, as far as I’m aware – and I did pretty extensive background checks, let me tell you.” He spins the whiteboard absently, flipping it over and over – from performance schematics to a hasty to-do list, and then back again. “He could’ve found that out without even coming here. And Marta, you really don’t look like much of an investigator. What are you _really_ doing here?”

Marta tries not to look too offended by this, and then realizes that there’s no point in that. She lets it shine all over her face. “I’m not,” she says, playing into the annoyance. Making herself sound a bit childish, a bit naive. She doesn’t entirely know why she’s doing it, but she has a hunch she’s onto something, and she elects to trust her instincts. “But I _could_ be.”

“Mm,” says Corey. The grin dies down to a bit of a smirk, playing around his lips, like he’s just worked out something important. “I bet you could. So if you’re not here as a fellow investigator with Mr Blanc...?”

“We’re friends,” Marta says, and she doesn’t feel sick, so she realizes – with a pleasant flutter of surprise – that it’s actually true. _Well, how about that?_ “Just friends, and – and I don’t really know why he brought me along. I think...” She digs around frantically, trying to search for a truth that’s painful enough to get pity points, and she hates herself when she says, haltingly, “I think he just brought me along so he could show off how clever he is to me?”

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh _dear_ ,” says Corey. He looks entirely too pleased about it, although he’s hiding it well. “That doesn’t sound very agreeable at all, Marta. May I ask how you feel about that?”

“Annoyed,” she says. “Confused. A lot of things, really.” Some of these things she doesn’t say aloud, of course. She’s a little bit annoyed that a circus outing had become a murder investigation with no warning whatsoever, a lot confused over what’s actually going on, but also quite a large bit touched that Blanc had thought to invite her – and a small, growing part of her is excited. Excited she’s in the thick of things, that she can maybe be helpful. “Why do you want to know?”

“I take it you’ve heard Mr Blanc’s allegations against our establishment?” Corey says, instead of answering.

“The murder?” Marta says, surprised, before her mouth snaps shut abruptly as she realizes that he could easily be just fishing for information – trying to work out why she and Blanc are there. He doesn’t seem especially interested or concerned, though.

“Oh yes.” He tosses the capped whiteboard marker up, and it goes spinning, end-over-end – and then he snatches it out of the air in one sharp, decisive movement. “Well, of course we had the police knocking on our door about it – our tent flap, I suppose – a while ago. Suspicious circumstances, me arriving early, all of that and more. I can’t say I blame them, but we really did have nothing to do with it! So they’ve left us alone since then. But I can see your friend’s still a bit suspicious.”

“He’s very thorough,” says Marta quietly. “When it comes to investigating.”

“I can see that,” he says. Taps the marker to his lips. “Understandable. Very understandable. Extremely annoying, though. Not that we have anything to hide!”

“Sorry on his behalf, then,” Marta says. “If there’s anything I can tell him to speed up his – our – investigation a bit?”

He hems and haws for a bit, and then says, “Don’t think so, not off the top of my head. Appreciate the effort and the thought, thank you very much, Marta. One more question for you, though, if you don’t mind!”

“Ask away,” she says with a smile that she hopes isn’t as visibly thin as it feels and a careless wave of her hand.

“Apart from your detective friend, who’s apparently dragging you around like a bedraggled puppet,” says Corey, with a wry grin directed at her – a shared joke between the two of them – “do you actually have _any_ connection to this situation? Do you care about any of this at all?”

Lydia Fox had been shot three times in the back and twice in the head; her clothes ransacked and torn until barely any of it had remained to cover her body – which had then been summarily dumped in the local river and recovered days later by the police. Brutal and cold and indifferent, as far as any murder goes. It makes Marta’s veins go icy with something that’s not quite sorrow and not quite rage whenever she thinks about it.

“No,” she says, with a shrug. “I’m just here because he is. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even need me.”

He eyes her for a second or two – and she fights valiantly to keep her gaze steady, to keep herself from blinking too much, to keep her posture nonchalant, to keep –

“All right,” he says, and mirrors her easy shrug. “No harm, no foul. Feel free to drop around here any time, by the way. Visitors are welcome, especially when they’re friends. And you look like a friend – am I right?”

Marta knows an invitation when she hears one. “I might just take you up on that,” she says brightly. “Is there any specific time that’s-?”

“Tomorrow morning,” he says instantly. “Ten o’clock. We have a –” He laughs – comfortably, openly. “ – well, we tend to call it a family meeting! Sounds kind of silly when I say it to someone outside the circus. Like I said, you’re absolutely welcome to tag along. You never know what might inspire someone to join the circus, and we’re always looking for new performers.”

“Sounds good,” she says. There is a dreadful sinking feeling taking root in her stomach. She accepts his offered hand to shake. It’s cold and dry. Marta imagines it’s akin to shaking the hand of a corpse, and tries not to let her disgust show on her face. “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he echoes, and waves goodbye amicably as she walks away.

Marta makes it all the way around the side of the tent, away from Markus Corey’s line of sight, before she doubles over, choking up the last of her breakfast.

*

“Anything?” she asks Blanc on their way back to the main town, afterwards.

“Next to nothing to speak of, damn it all,” he says, fairly mildly, and glances sideways. “And you? I sense some lying may have been involved.”

She wipes reflexively at her chin, just in case there’s any leftover vomit she hadn’t quite managed to clear up. There’s none there, he must have guessed from some other context clue. “Yeah. Yeah, I – I may be onto something.”

“By all means, then – share away.”

A long pause.

“I don’t know if I _should,_ ” she says, twisting her scarf around and around her hand – unravelling it and winding it back again just as quickly. “There’s something going on there, but – Marcus Corey, the ringmaster, he knows who you are. And he doesn’t trust me. And if he asks me if you know what’s going on, and I keep – ” She mimes the action of throwing up, briefly. “ – every five seconds every time I tell him _no,_ he’s gonna catch on. And I _really_ think I’m onto something.” She catches his eye. “Trust me?”

“Of course,” he agrees readily. “But keep your phone on you at all times – if you’re prepared to dive down this particular foxhole in hunt of some errant foxes. You never know how vicious they may end up getting, when cornered.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she confesses, more to her knees than to him proper.

“My dear Marta – in my experience, few people ever rarely do,” he says, turning onto the main road leading back to town. “Least of all me. If you’re wandering blindly around in the dark, be completely assured of and reassured by the fact that you are following entirely in my own footsteps.”

*

Blanc braids her hair that night. She’s sitting cross-legged on the end of her hotel bed, scrolling mindlessly through Twitter, and he holds up a hairbrush that he’s picked up from the bathroom sink, and says, “Marta, not to put too fine a point on it, but your hair looks as if several rats have crawled into it and made themselves a cosy little home in there.”

She hadn’t brushed her hair that morning or the one before. She’s tired and worried and almost vibrating with nervous anticipation of an event that she’s not even sure about the details of. She almost doesn’t realize what she’s agreeing to when she nods, until she notices the weight of him settling neatly behind her.

It’s like a middle school sleepover. Except middle school was miserable and she was never invited to any sleepovers. Probably a good thing, she’d never have survived the obligatory _so-who’s-your-crush-then_ discussions.

Slow but firm strokes tug at her hair. Never enough to hurt, but enough to get the job done. The lights are dim and it’s late evening, and it’s just the two of them breathing together – Marta staring at her phone, no longer really seeing it; Blanc intent on the task at hand.

Eventually he finishes untangling it all, and – without remarking on it at all or noting that he’s doing it – sets about weaving it into a neat plait. Three strands, separated. Over, under, across. Repeat, repeat, repeat. She wonders where he’d picked up the skill. It doesn’t seem like something a renowned detective would need to know for any particular reason.

His hands hesitate for a second. He says, “You’ll be careful, at the very least?”

She breathes in-and-out again, and then says, “I don’t know. I hope so.”

*

When she asks if she can borrow his car the next morning, he agrees without hesitation – telling her he had some business in town anyway, and walking around would do him some good. He tosses her the keys, and she fumbles the catch, and she says, “I’m probably about to do something very extremely stupid,” because even the thought of lying to him by omission makes her feel violently ill – and not entirely just because of her condition.

He doesn’t look entirely happy about this – about as unhappy with the situation as she feels. “As long as you feel it’s necessary,” he says, despite the clear worry on his face. He reaches out and taps her neatly on the nose. “Your instincts may just be better than mine.”

Marta’s flattered by this, of course – but really doesn’t know how else to feel about that. She winds her fingers around the keychain, and says, “See you this afternoon?”

“I’m going to look into Lydia Fox’s background and history,” he says, with a nod of confirmation. “See if we can shed any light on the situation in that regard.”

“Research,” she says, and smiles wryly. “You have my sympathies.”

“Sympathies that are greatly accepted and appreciated,” he says and lets out a single exaggerated shudder. “You certainly have the more exciting job out of the two of us, I suspect. Well, let’s see how it all pans out.”

A short drive to the circus later, and Markus Corey is at the front gate as she pulls around, greeting her like an old friend. He ushers her into the big top, where a surprisingly small amount of people are clustered around a card table that’s been set up in the middle of the tent. She recognizes a few of the circus performers, although they look so different without their makeup on that it’s actually startling. A few of them freeze; cast suspicious looks at her as she enters, but Corey says, “Not to worry! Miss Cabrera here is our friend on the other side!”

She doesn’t like how he says her name like that. It’s not in the most distinct Southern accent you ever did hear and the vowels are all wrong in a way that it’s hard to pinpoint. She just nods and smiles and says “hello” and if she feels nervous and unsettled by everyone around her – well, she’s had experience dealing with one particular family that had made her feel much, _much_ worse. This, quite frankly, is nothing.

The meeting is about money. Money and transactions and covert deals. The conversation is so fast and bewilderingly detailed that Marta can’t even begin to make out what the money’s for or about – although, it’s not at all hard to work out that whatever they’re talking about, it’s nothing to do with regular circus operations. After all, circuses don’t typically have ‘regular buyers’ or ‘rendezvous points for dropoff’, and she doubts that any legitimate business they’re conducting would have so many references to staying ahead of the police.

Her mind is working triple-time as she nods along with everyone else. There are so many possibilities here – money laundering? Drug deals? Some other sort of illicit smuggling operation? None of these would surprise her at this point. She wishes she’d had the foresight to do something like turn her phone’s recorder on beforehand, because she’s almost certain that this is some kind of evidence – although she can’t begin to understand what it all means.

When the meeting draws to an end, almost fifteen minutes later, everyone starts collecting up papers and drifting off in their separate directions. Marta, left mostly alone and in the cover of a gradually dispersing crowd, takes the opportunity to speed-dial Blanc as covertly as she can. As soon as the call connects, she thumbs _mute,_ and says, “Mr Corey – ah, Markus? Can we talk?” – as loud as she can, trusting that Blanc will stay on the line and listen.

“I was hoping that we could, yes!” Corey says, coming around from the front of the table. He headed most of the discussion – allocating ‘tasks’ and ‘dropoffs’ to various members of the circus. He hadn't even looked at her once during the entirety of the meeting. “Walk with me – I have something to show you.”

“Sure,” Marta says, hand touching her pocket briefly. She has no way of knowing if Blanc’s listening right now, or if it’s gone straight to voicemail, or if something else has happened and it’s not recording at all.

“Miss Cabrera – you’ve been so cooperative,” says Corey, as he leads her back to his caravan. “Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it.”

“Of course,” says Marta. “But, um – I really don’t understand what I’m doing here. I mean, I appreciate that you’ve brought me into your trust and everything, but – ”

“You don’t really know what our whole hush-hush operation is about?” Corey says, a sympathetic – and slightly amused – smile tugging at his lips. As she nods, he laughs and keeps walking. She pauses for a moment, and decides now’s as good a time as any to confirm exactly what she’s doing.

“I hope you’re still listening,” she says, bending down to undo and then retie her shoelaces, on an impulse – and also hoping that her phone, in her pocket, will pick up the sound of her voice. “You’re always talking about my instincts. Well, my current instincts are that I’m about to get murdered in a horrible fashion by a circus ringmaster, so...” She hesitates. “I’m going to follow him. Because I haven’t really found out enough yet. I’ll run at the first sign of trouble, but – if you could, somehow, maybe, try to catch up with me? Backup would be appreciated.”

“Marta?” Corey calls.

“Coming!” she says, straightening up, and hurries to catch up with him.

They go past the largest trailer, the one that Blanc had remarked upon as being odd. The rest of the campsite seems lively and active, but the windows are shuttered and blocked out in this particular trailer, and there doesn’t seem to be any activity at all around it. _Odd,_ she thinks, and then sees the ring of keys jingling on Corey’s belt, and thinks, _hm,_ and then, _this is a really stupid idea_ , moments before she begins plotting exactly how to steal it without him noticing.

As it turns out, it’s not entirely that hard, because as they reach the trailer, Corey’s phone starts ringing. He checks the caller ID, shoots her an apologetic look, and says, “Oh, Marta, I’m so sorry – this can’t wait. I’ll have to take this inside. Do you mind-?”

“Of course not,” she says, and, as he turns to hurry up the steps to his trailer, sneezes loudly.

“Oh, bless you,” says Corey offhandedly, in the tone of voice that indicates it’s more a reflex response than anything else, and he answers his phone.The sneeze successfully covered up the faint jingle as she’d managed to grift the keyring off his belt – remarkably smoothly. Three cheers for overtly detail-oriented murder mystery writers and their suspiciously accurate explanations on how to accomplish a variety of borderline-illegal activities.

The door to the caravan shuts, and Marta stands still for a second with her stolen set of keys, thinking to herself, _what on Earth am I even doing?_

She shakes it off quickly, and hurries towards the large, shuttered-off trailer with purpose. She knows she doesn’t have all that much time on her hands here, and she wants to make every second of it count.

*

There is a story about a man who warns his wife not to look behind one closed door in particular on pain of death, fully content in the knowledge that her curiosity will overcome and betray her. Behind the door, of course, are the strung-up corpses of the man’s previous wives, a chilling premonition of the intrepid heroine’s inevitable fate. Marta has never really liked this story – oh, sure, the ending is satisfying enough, but no exposure of a twisted man’s equally twisted ways and happy ending for the main character is enough to fix the very simple fact of it – there is no salvation for the man’s unfortunate former brides. They are dead before the story starts – a plot point, a means to an end.

It’s this story that’s running absently, almost maniacally, through the back of Marta’s head as she goes to open her own forbidden door – so maybe it’s not as much of a surprise as it should be when she pushes the key in the lock and twists it around and turns the handle to reveal a room full of hospital beds and young women lying in them, pale and silent.

Marta gasps, her hand going to her mouth to muffle the reflexive sound, and she quickly processes what she’s seeing – there are approximately ten of them, beds close together in the cramped little room. There are surgical instruments everywhere and even though it’s dim, she can make out the surgery scars. She thinks she sees their chests moving – so, at least some of them are alive.

It’s not even a conscious decision for her. She’s in the room and flitting from bed to bed before she’s even aware she’s doing it. Checking pulses and pupil responses and running through all the proper checklists in her head. They’re all alive. Heavily sedated, and in some cases in dire need of immediate medical attention, but _alive._ She maps out the positions of the scars in her head, hands ghosting over skin – connections drawing together slowly but surely.

There’s not blood everywhere and corpses manacled to the walls, so it’s not _nearly_ as terrible as the story of Bluebeard’s Wife, but it’s still rather jarring to come across –

Marta stops. A bolt like electricity sparks through her brain, igniting synapses and setting her mind on fire. She _gets_ it. She tugs out her phone to check it, and it’s still on and the call’s still running, which reassures her somewhat.

“It’s an organ harvesting operation,” she says – half into the phone, half to herself. “They killed and dumped Lydia Fox because they couldn’t get anything from her and they didn’t have anything to blackmail her with to keep her quiet! They find them by –” Another piece of the puzzle clicks neatly into place. “ – by getting young women who look like they’re alone. Or don’t know what they’re doing, easy marks, and they invite them over to the circus, and...” She falters, and knows that if Blanc’s actually listening right now, he’s probably come to the exact same conclusion as she has. She has perfectly described the situation she has stumbled her way into. She fits the demographic, at least from Markus Corey’s point of view. “...and I need to get out of here. Right now.”

“Good luck with that,” comes a voice from behind her, and speak of the devil.

“Oh, shit,” she says.

A quick glance over her shoulder confirms it – it’s Markus Corey.

She thinks, _I shouldn’t have left the door open behind me,_ and in the same moment, she dodges and ducks hard to the right, anticipating the inevitable blow. She gets it right, thank god – she manages to brace herself against the caravan wall while he stumbles and swears, and takes the split-second reprieve to consider her options. There aren’t many. This is a tight, unfortunate situation.

She says, loudly, “Blanc, _call the fucking police,_ ” and tries to push past Corey and towards the door. Freedom is so very close – she just needs to make it to the car.

No such luck, though – Corey’s already righted himself and swings around to block her departure. “Who are you talking to?” he says, shoving her against the wall with a crooked grin. He leers at her unpleasantly. “Unless – oh dear, have you been on the phone this whole time? _Sneaky._ ”

“Have you been stealing people’s internal organs and selling them on the black market this whole time?” she gasps out, clawing ineffectually at his hands – one holding her shoulders and the other uncomfortably close to her neck. “ _Illegal._ ”

“Illegal didn’t stop you and your detective friend from impersonating health and safety inspectors to get in here in the first place,” he points out, eyes shining with amusement.

“Immoral, then,” she says, swivels her neck, and bites him on the hand – which isn’t really the sort of thing a kindhearted person does, but she thinks Blanc would forgive her for this small slipup. It does the trick. He screeches in pain, and recoils, and she takes the opportunity to swipe something from one of the operating tables and duck under his outstretched arms and out the door of the trailer.

She has the keys, she realizes. She could just lock him in the trailer and wait for the police to arrive and there would be no possible way he could get to her. But doing that would mean locking him in with a whole lot of defenceless, unconscious girls and a whole lot of very dangerous medical equipment, and... no. No, the only way she’ll be locking that door is if Markus Corey is on the outside.

She starts running, putting distance between her and the surgery trailer.

It’s a fifteen-minute drive from the town to the circus. More, if obtaining a car and backup takes a significant amount of time. Less if Blanc speeds. All she has to do is stall until then – keep Corey’s attention on her. Driving away herself is _not_ an option. There are ten women depending on her right now, and if she leaves, there’s no telling what will happen to them – even in such a short period of time.

“Hey!” she yells, spinning on her heel and waving her hands as she makes yet another in a string of extraordinarily terrible case-related decisions. “Over here!” – which she doesn’t entirely expect to actually _work,_ but apparently this is just what her life is like at this point. He comes running after her, with a surgical scalpel.

There are quite a lot of thoughts running through her mind as she leads him on a merry, terrifying chase, looping around and through the trailers in a way that almost reminds her of a game of Tag. A game of Tag that she really doesn’t want to be playing.

In one part of her head, she’s hoping the rest of the circus performers are nowhere near the trailers – and judging from the lack of people she’s seen around since the meeting, that seems a pretty reasonable hope – because she can maybe hopefully outrun and/or outsmart _one_ person, but adding more people to the mix would probably be a literal death sentence.

Another part of her is wondering if Markus Corey is actually stupid enough to try to murder her, right after she’s rather loudly announced that the police are on their way. What is it with murderous lunatics and trying to kill her in a desperate bid for revenge after their plans have been shattered into pieces? It’s becoming a distressingly recursive theme in her life.

And yet another part of her is studiously comparing this incident and That Last Incident, and trying very hard to work out which of them is more terrifying. It concludes, after some musing, that this is probably the more traumatizing out of the two – if only because its set in a circus, which is prime horror movie fuel if she ever saw it. And as messed up as Ransom’s scheme had been, at least organ harvesting hadn’t been involved. It’s a very, _very_ low bar to meet, but Markus Corey has spectacularly failed to meet it.

Most of her, however, is focused on what she’s about to do next, because... well, that’s the tricky part.

It could be minutes or it could be hours, but she manages to evade him for all of it. She can hear him getting more and more frustrated – and maybe that makes him sloppy, because somehow she manages to sneak up behind him without him noticing. And he freezes as she jabs something very sharp and metallic into the back of his neck.

There are police sirens wailing in the distance, Marta notices now. Only a few more minutes, and they’ll have arrived.

“I won’t hesitate to stab you with this,” she tells him. Not a lie. He doesn’t know about that certain condition of hers, of course, but throwing up on someone after saying something really isn’t the best of ways to ensure that they know you mean it. No, she’s going to stick firmly to the truth during this confrontation – and hope it doesn’t end up getting her killed. She hopes her voice isn’t shaking. “I picked this up in that butchery room of yours. I hear it’s lethal in the right hands. Stay _very_ still.”

“The right hands? Are yours the right ones, I wonder?” he says – all the while staying perfectly still.

“I’m a nurse,” she says. “Or was, anyway. Believe me, I know all the right places to cut you to make you bleed out.”

He lets out a startled, humorless laugh. “You know,” he says, “I’m beginning to think I made a mistake picking you as our newest organ donor.”

“Good,” she says. “Because you’re absolutely right.”

“I thought you were nice,” he says. “Nice and a little bit lost – disillusioned with the world around you. People like that always make the best marks.”

“ _Nice_ doesn’t mean _a pushover,_ Mr Corey,” Marta says, struggling not to let her fingers tremble.

The sirens stop.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m beginning to see that now.”

“ _Marta!_ ” comes the yell from across the circus campsite – practically bellowed, really. There’s the sound of pounding footsteps as Blanc straight-up _sprints_ towards her.

She lets out a sigh of relief, and drops the completely unlethal ballpoint pen that she’s been holding to Markus Corey’s neck this whole time. “Well,” she says. “You certainly took your time.”

*

There is a foil blanket wrapped around Marta’s shoulders, and she’s been seated in the open rear end of a police vehicle. She wants to laugh at the sheer, overwhelming cliché of it, but has a feeling that her doing so would be pegged as hysteria. She’s not hysteric, she really isn’t. Her heart’s only racing at a million miles an hour, and she can’t stop going over the details in her head again and again, despite the fact that she knows she got every bit of it right.

“Here,” says Blanc. His sudden appearance startles her. He’s been talking to the local police for a while after she gave her own statement and summary of events. And somehow managed to creep up on her as quietly as a cat – or maybe she was too lost in her thoughts. He sits next to her, and tugs another foil blanket around his own shoulders. He nods at her with comical seriousness. “Now we match.”

She smiles at this. “Oh, come on. You were barely involved in _any_ of this. What do you need the shock blanket for?”

“Well, if you really must know – for being worried out of my damn mind over all this circus business,” he says. “I would quite firmly declare that phone call to be enough of a shock to warrant this.” He adjusts the blanket. It crinkles.

“Sorry,” she offers.

“Not to worry,” he says easily. “I’ve done stupider things, mainly during my early years on the force. Oh, the stories that I could tell – but I won’t. Because they paint me in a dreadfully naive light, and I still have _some_ pride. And I’d like it if you had some respect for me, because I do admire you so – if there’s any of that left, that is.”

She doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, so she doesn’t.

“Next time,” she says, instead. “I think we should do the investigation together. No splitting up, no going off on my own, no – no pointless secretkeeping.”

He hums and nods, and then says, “So, there’s going to be a next time, then?”

This gives her pause. She said it without considering why she did so; made the assertion without much conscious thought involved at all. _Does_ she want to keep on doing this? She didn’t enjoy fighting against another murderous angry white guy with unpleasant ideals, that’s for certain. Lying her way awkwardly into a trap also wasn’t anywhere near her idea of a fun time. What is it, exactly, that makes her want to have anything more to do with detective work?

Then she thinks of that one terrifying, adrenaline-fueled moment where all the pieces had fallen together at once for her. Where everything suddenly made sense, even in the midst of a catastrophe, and the world seemed to pause in one beautiful shining instant, and her brain went, _oh. Yes. Okay, that’s it._

“I think there is,” she says, and bumps his shoulder with his, tentatively. “If you’re still in the market for a Watson?”

“In the market? Oh – not at all,” he says. “I’d say the position has been categorically and absolutely filled at this point.” And he gives her one of those beautifully genuine smiles of his – his eyes crinkling up around the corners, and – as if to dispel any and all doubts about what he means by this – offers his hand to her. “A pleasure to have you onboard with me, Miss Cabrera.”

She takes his hand, and shakes it. Firm, decisive, matching the tightness of his grip as closely as she can. “It’s good to be here, Detective Blanc,” she says.

They disengage from the handshake, and Blanc says, “Call me Benoit, please. I think we’ve reached that point.”

“In that case,” she says, “just Marta is fine.”

“Marta,” he says, and smiles. “I can do that. Except, of course, when calling you by a more formal last name is, ah, suitable for dramatic effect...?”

“Well, _obviously_ then,” she says. “And the same for me. I insist on that.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” he says. “It’s just not a proper denouement if you’re not conferring with your sleuthing partner like the two of you have just stepped out of an Agatha Christie novel, I find.”

In the back of a police car, surrounded by the chaos of people struggling to make sense of a mad world, and sirens and yelling from every side, Marta thrives. It’s dreadful, but she feels like a strange sort of home. Not the location, but the feeling. The same as the feeling of hunching over the Go board in Harlan’s study, laughter bubbling between her and him as they played and talked and schemed. Of ducking under the covers with Alice in an impromptu blanket fort decades ago for a meeting featuring secrets so secret she can’t remember them now. Something she doesn’t have a name for. It’s like she’s finally drinking in the sunlight after years in the shade.

Marta can already feel herself growing.


End file.
